


Blackmail

by TaeStarr



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Angst, I didn't edit this at all, Louie gets blackmailed, One shot (probably), it's probably kinda rough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22194472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaeStarr/pseuds/TaeStarr
Summary: A mistake from Louie's past comes back to haunt him.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 35





	Blackmail

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! Still working on that last chapter of Rebel. I keep making changes. The last thing I want is for that finale to be a disappointment. If I'm honest, I'm not even close to done with it. But I will finish it, I promise!
> 
> Anyway, this is something I threw together months and months ago, when I was first toying with the idea of "Louie betrays the family." I had a vague outline of where I wanted this story to go. The piece of paper I scribbled those notes on has been long lost. The story was going to be very dark, I remember that much. I decided I wanted something a little more lighthearted, and that's what Rebel became. I think I made the right choice.
> 
> I'm not entirely certain why I decided I wanted to put this out. It's rough, for sure. As far as I remember, this piece is the result of a few hours of nonstop writing and was not edited or otherwise cleaned up at all. Enjoy!

Louie exhaled loudly through his nose as soon as the elevator dinged, signaling his arrival at the top floor of the bin. He didn’t know why the vultures had summoned him; he couldn’t think of any recent mistakes on his part – maybe one of his brothers had gotten up to some mischief. Louie, as McDuck Enterprises’ CFO, was always the one that answered to the old fucks whenever one of Huey’s inventions went haywire, or whenever one of Dewey’s cursed artifacts ravaged a part of the town.

Scrooge left his empire in capable hands, finally deciding to “retire,” which apparently meant adventuring literally nonstop for pleasure instead of treasure. Scrooge could trust Huey to lead the McDuck Industries research and development team; last Louie had heard, they were on the verge of a breakthrough on a new source of energy that would have “whole countries lining up at their door.” Scrooge could trust Dewey to keep finding priceless treasures; Dewey and Della made for an unstoppable team, even as Della passed fifty years old. And Scrooge could trust Louie to keep everything afloat; Duckburg’s youngest Chief Financial Officer was known for his canny investing ability, his “spend money to make money” attitude that sharply contrasted with his great uncle’s “a penny saved is a penny earned” mantra. The three were still in their 20’s, and had achieved so much.

That didn’t mean that none of the three were faultless. Each would have their occasional slip-up, and those slip-ups tended to be expensive. Therefore, as the money man, Louie would be the one who would get chewed out by the vultures, even if it wasn’t his fault. He’d much rather be spending time with his family (it was the Christmas season, after all), but now he had to deal with whatever this was. The call he’d gotten from the Bentley Buzzard was curt and to-the-point: he was _required_ to appear before the board at the earliest possible juncture. Now, the vultures were always curt and to-the-point, but Louie could still tell when he was about to sit through a lecture.

Louie strolled lazily through Scrooge’s old office, which had been maintained exactly as Scrooge kept it before his retirement. Louie had been offered the space when he took over, but he decided that it was as good an homage as any to the man who built this empire. Louie knew he couldn’t fill that seat, so he didn’t try. No use trying when there’s no point. Louie had picked up some semblance of a work ethic over the years, but he still lived by his personal golden rule: do the least amount of work possible by getting the most out of the work you do.

It took Louie nearly a full minute to cross the office and get to the door into the conference room. All he could think about was how annoyed he was that he even had to deal with this. He was going to make the vultures work for this one. He was gonna be on his phone the whole time. See how far he could push them. At least he’d get some entertainment out of this.

“What issit this time, ye scandalous scavengers?!” Louie belted out as he kicked open the door. He was pretty proud of his Scrooge impression. Even if the vultures weren’t particularly “scandalous.” That was just the first alliterative phrase that came to his mind.

“Have a seat, Mr. Duck,” Bentley instructed solemnly.

“Wow, it’s like I’m walking into a funeral. You’re all normally so vibrant! What’s got you down?” Louie said with all the shit-eating disrespect he could muster. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t be such a dick, but he was really not happy to have to work while he was supposed to be on vacation.

“It’s funny you should say that,” one of the buzzards mumbled. Louie raised an eyebrow.

“Why is that funny?” Louie asked. It was very unusual for any of the vultures to make any sort of offhand comment that wasn’t strictly business-related. Louie caught the sly expressions that the other two buzzards sent to the one that spoke up. It honestly unnerved him.

“Please, Mr. Duck,” Bentley repeated, gesturing to the captain’s chair at the head of the long conference table, opposite where the three vultures were seated.

Louie complied, hopping into the seat and laying on it sideways, resting his head on one arm and letting his legs drape over the other. Immediately, Louie’s phone was in his hands. He sent a few choice words in the Duck Brothers’ group chat in response to Huey and Dewey both sending him variations of “sucks to be you” after he told them what he was called away for.

“Mr. Duck, I think it’d be prudent for you to keep your attention on what we’re about to tell you,” Bentley said. Louie detected an off-putting tone that he’d never heard before. It almost had a sort of… _hatred_ behind it.

“Oh, yea, for sure, I’m all ears,” Louie replied, not removing his eyes from his phone.

There were a few moments of silence. Out of the corner of his eye, Louie could see the vultures exchange another sly set of looks. This one was even more unnerving than the last. What the hell was going on?

He was probably just overthinking things. Huey and Dewey had replied with a selfie. Both were enjoying some hot cocoa with mom and Uncle Donald at the mansion. Louie was jealous. He was trying to think of a witty thing to say in response when Bentley cleared his throat.

“Mr. Duck, do you remember where you were early in the morning on Christmas Eve five years ago?”

Louie’s heart stopped. Louie felt as if time itself had frozen around him. He was jolted back to his senses by his phone loudly smacking the floor of the conference room. He’d forgotten he was holding it and he’d dropped it in his shock.

“Th-That’s…” Louie stuttered. He swallowed, trying to regain his composure. “That’s an oddly specific question,” Louie replied as evenly as he could. “I’m honestly not certain.”

“That’s a lie, and we both know it, Mr. Duck. Or is your memory that short?” Bentley taunted. That hint of hatred Louie had heard earlier was now _very_ obvious in the vulture’s voice. Louie had switched his posture to sitting upright, he wasn’t even aware of when that had happened. His eyes were wide, his mouth agape. He wanted to speak, but seemed to have forgotten how to. Bentley tented his fingers. “Mr. Duck, we will gladly remind you.” The projector in the room clicked to life, projecting an image of a stretch of coastal roadway onto the screen behind the vultures.

“Please no,” was all that left Louie’s mouth. He wasn’t even sure if it was voluntary.

\---

The coastal ranges outside Duckburg were always so beautiful, but Louie appreciated them the most in the early morning hours, when the sky was still purplish-black. The color palate of the trees and the natural rock formations was the most pleasant at that hour. Louie would hop in his sports car and drive the coastal highway with the top down. Nobody would ever be on the road at that hour; he’d speed and weave around corners. He always felt like he was in some real-life version of Mario Kart.

It was Christmas Eve, and Louie didn’t have to work that day. It was exceedingly cold, but Louie still drove the highway with the top of his car missing, letting the bitterly frigid air sting his face. His ears felt like they were about to fall off, but he didn’t care. There really was nothing like this.

Louie felt like he was invincible. He could get up to eighty, ninety miles per hour in literally seconds. He’d occasionally pull the e-brake and drift around a corner if it wasn’t blind. More than once, Louie had considered trying to flee if a cop wanted to pull him over. Thankfully, he hadn’t yet been forced to make that decision. Officers didn’t seem to patrol this area, at least not at this hour. It was a secluded road under normal circumstances.

Louie rounded a corner and his attention was immediately ensnared by a van parked on the shoulder some distance ahead on the road. It was painted very colorfully. There was some sort of cartoonish decal painted on the side. Louie didn’t slow down, but he kept his gaze on the van so that he could get a better look at it as he passed by. He would glance occasionally at the road to make sure he wasn’t veering too far off course. At some point, he’d crossed the double-yellow line. He didn’t do anything to correct it; it’s not like there was anyone on the road anyway.

Right as he was about to pass the van, he took another glance at the road to make sure he wasn’t about to fly off the left side of the road. That was the side that bordered the ocean, and Louie’s car couldn’t transform into a plane nor a boat.

“Oh _shit!_ ” Louie screeched out. A man was walking across the road, at an angle away from Louie’s direction of travel. The guy probably thought that Louie was going to pass to his right. Louie totally would have, if he were driving on the correct side of the road. Instead…

Louie slammed on the brakes, but it was far too late for that. The man’s body impacted Louie’s windshield and flew overhead. A few seconds later, Louie’s car came to a complete stop. His face felt wet. He wiped at it and looked at his hand. Blood. Why was he bleeding? He looked down at his body. There were splotches of blood all over him, from about his waist up. It was definitely not his own blood.

“No, no, no…” Louie began to utter increasingly frantically.

“No, _no!_ Oh fuck, oh _fuck!”_

Louie cut the engine and hopped out of the car. Down the road, a few hundred feet behind where his car had come to a stop, Louie could see a pile of some sort. It seemed very formless in the low early-morning light. He sprinted toward it, and as he got closer it became clearer and clearer that the pile was a man. He fell to his knees, nearly fainting when he was about ten feet away from the bloody pile.

The man, a sparrow, was dead. He couldn’t have been much older than Louie himself. In the many sleepless, guilt-ridden nights that haunted Louie from that day forward, he found a tiny amount of solace in the fact that the guy probably died instantly. His colorful beanie was laying on the pavement several dozen feet way. Both of the man’s shoes were long gone, and had taken one of his legs with it from the shin down. The back of the sparrow’s skull had been violently pushed in, to the point that it disfigured his face and made him look like the caricatures of cavemen that Louie would see on TV. Blood was leaking everywhere. The smell of the blood overpowered the smell of the ocean. Louie leaned to one side and vomited all over the side of the road.

It was at this moment that Louie developed a phobia of blood. From that day forward, the sight of blood could potentially make him suffer a violent panic attack. The psychologist said it seemed like it was trauma-related, as it was very rare for someone to suddenly develop such a strong phobia for no reason. Louie insisted that there was no traumatic event that triggered it. He was just one of those very rare cases.

Louie crawled to the side of the road and began rocking back and forth and bawling. What had he done? What had he done? What had he done?...

“So you do remember that morning, judging by the tears rolling down your face,” Bentley said stoically. Louie snapped back to reality. He’d just relived that morning, again, in full view of the vultures. The rest of Louie’s wits returned to him slowly.

“I…” Louie choked out.

“Don’t worry, you don’t need to talk about it, Mr. Duck,” the vulture soothed. “It’s all _very_ well documented.” The buzzard pressed on the clicker in his hands, and the projector changed slides to a picture of the man Louie killed. Louie was all too familiar with that picture; it was the picture the media used every night as the search for the man continued. They never did find his body.

“So, what did you do after you _murdered_ this poor kid, Mr. Duck?” Bentley spat out. Louie opened his mouth to reply, but Bentley kept speaking.

“You did what any ultra-rich asshole would do: you covered it up. You had the connections. All it took was one phone call. We were out there in just minutes. We cleaned up the road. We took your car and got it refurbished. We contacted our plants in the Duckburg Police Department and had them “discover” evidence that the man had slipped and fallen off that cliff and into the ocean. We’re very efficient. This is the type of work we do best.”

“W-We?” Louie asked. “I… I contacted FOWL…”

“Yes, Mr. Duck. We at FOWL have a simple rule: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” The buzzards all nodded in agreement. Bentley continued, “Your great uncle has always been one of our organization’s greatest enemies. It was always very easy to operate around him when we knew _exactly_ what he was up to at all times. Same goes for you and the rest of your family.”

The buzzards let their reveal simmer in Louie’s brain for a few moments. His greatest enemies had occupied the most trusted positions in his company for longer than he’d even been alive. It was a masterful long con that Louie almost appreciated.

“The search for that young man continued for a few weeks. Eventually, everybody accepted that the most likely thing was that he had fallen off that cliff. The waves took his body away.” The projector clicked to another slide. An older woman was kneeling beside a closed casket. Louie knew that the casket was empty.

“It was a beautiful service, wasn’t it? A shame that they didn’t have a body to bury, but…” the vulture hummed a little as he decided on his next words. “But… it was all worth it, wasn’t it? The fact that they buried an empty casket? Because it saved your ass. You and your livelihood are _much_ more important than those fucking peasants, right?”

“No, that’s not… that’s not it,” Louie meekly offered, his voice raw with emotion.

“It’s not?” Bentley questioned. “What is it, then? Why would you go to all that length to cover up the _murder-_ ”

“Stop calling it that!” Louie barked.

“Why? Isn’t that exactly what it is? Negligent murder is still murder, Mr. Duck!”

The next slide was projected onto the screen. It was the sparrow’s mangled body, resting on some sort of autopsy table. Louie threw up in his mouth, but managed to swallow the bile back down.

“Please… Please stop…” Louie said faintly. He looked down at his feet and began fully sobbing.

“Why would we stop? You seem to have forgotten what happened that morning. We’re doing you a service by reminding you!” The buzzard walked around the table and put his hand underneath Louie’s chin. He roughly brought Louie’s head up, forcing him to look at the screen. “Do _not_ look away! You will _look_ at what you have done! You took a man’s _life_ , and used your unique position of power to ensure that it cost you _nothing!_ ”

“Please stop!” Louie begged. He was fully hysterical at this point. “What do you want? What is it you want from me?!”

“ _You_ are going to _destroy_ McDuck Enterprises at our direction,” Bentley instructed. “If and _only if_ you follow our instructions _to a tee_ , what happened that morning will stay a secret. Imagine what your brothers would think if they found out that brother Louie is a murderer? What would your mom think? Your Uncle Donald? Scrooge?”

“P-Please,” Louie continued to beg. He wasn’t even sure what he was begging for anymore.

“You were _‘so moved’_ by the missing person story that you covered the family’s funeral expense. How do you think they’d react if they discovered that they’d taken your blood money?”

Bentley slammed his fist on the table, startling Louie. “If you do not do _exactly_ as we say, on _our_ timeframe, then the news media will be receiving a very interesting package, and we will get an answer to these questions. We _own_ you, Louie Duck. You can both tarnish your family name and spend the rest of your life in jail, or you can comply.”

Louie did not respond immediately. Bentley turned his back to Louie, maintaining a strict posture with his arms behind his back. “If you comply, Mr. Duck, we will make sure that you and your family continue to live comfortable lives. You will no longer be in control of the resources that your uncle amassed, but you will not be destitute. If you refuse, well… we’re playing our ultimate hand right now. We’ll have no choice but to launch all-out war with the Duck-McDuck clan. You’ll go to prison, which will take care of you, but…”

The projector switched to one last slide. It appeared to be a live feed of some sort. One side of the screen showed a figure, fully dressed top-to-toe in all black, holding a long rifle. The other side of the screen appeared to show what that figure was seeing through his scope. The crosshair slowly panned across Della and Donald, Huey and Dewey, who were all enjoying a nice day together in the mansion. Blissfully unaware that death was just one twitch of the finger away.

We do not fuck around, Mr. Duck. You might go to prison, but we would need to resort to… other measures… to take care of your family.”

_“You will not hurt them!”_ Louie screeched, seething with rage.

“That choice is yours, Louie Duck. We will give you a few minutes to decide. No funny business, we’ll be watching.”

With that, the buzzards left the room. Louie’s forehead smacked down on the desk in front of him.

He was well and truly fucked, wasn’t he? He really didn’t have a choice.

Louie Duck was going to cause the fall of the McDuck empire.


End file.
